06562
November 2, 2006

Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu adds 7,000 converts

Dramatic announcement made during August General Assembly

by Pat Cole
International mission communications officer

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu, at which 7,000 new converts were welcomed into the church.
Photo by David Walter.

LOUISVILLE — While a Presbyterian General Assembly watched in rapt attention, 1,300 new Christians in Vanuatu marched into the August meeting to declare their faith and to report the conversion of 5,700 others.

     “We were sitting under the banyan trees and when they marched in we were waiting for each one to shake their hands,” says the Rev. Fiama Rakau, president of Talua Ministry Training Center, the only seminary of the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu (PCV).  “A lot of people came to tears when they saw this thing happen.”

     The 7,000 new converts are the result of a major mission push in the South Pacific island nation by the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu, Rakau says. “We are excited about what the Lord is doing in Vanuatu,” he adds.

     The new converts live on the island of Tanna, the site of this year’s General Assembly. They were followers of the John Frum movement, a “cargo cult” that believes an American named John Frum will deliver material bounty and bring prosperity to the island.

     The movement began in the 1940s as U.S. military personnel arrived on Tanna carrying huge amounts of cargo.

     Tanna has been the center of the movement and until now evangelism efforts there had limited success. “I think it’s God’s time,” Rakau says. “For so many years the church has tried to get through and never succeeded until this time. I think God is putting his hand on the whole issue, and I think it’s God’s time for the island of Tanna.”

     A Bible study in the early 1990s led the PCV to step up its mission activities, says Rakau, a former clerk of the PCV. “This Bible study had led the church to realize that we were concentrating on inward mission,” he explains. “That is, we were concentrating on Christians and were not doing enough with outward mission to non-Christians.”

One of 7,000 new converts is greeted by an official of the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu at the church's General Assembly. Photo by David Walter.

     The church began a special one-year program at its seminary, which prepares missionaries for both rural and urban settings. Three residents of Tanna were among the first to complete the training and return home to begin mission work. One of the three, Maliwan Taruel, began a church at Sulphur Bay, an area near a large volcano that is considered a sacred site for John Frum followers.

     One of Taruel’s early converts was his father, who is a chief. “I was asked to preach at the opening of the church,” says Rakau. “I gave a necktie to the chief and told him he would be the responsible person to lead the church.”

     Taruel was joined by Fred Nase, a native of Sulphur Bay who left a job on a fishing ship after sensing a call to return to his home community. Together Taruel and Nase built a Christian community at Sulphur Bay. Other small groups of believers were springing up around the far-flung villages of the island, the result of PCV mission activity.

     In January 2005 construction began on a concrete block church building in Sulphur Bay to replace a thatched structure. Westminster Presbyterian Church of Grand Rapids, MI, contributed $15,000 toward construction of the church.

     Volunteers from all over Vanuatu descended on Tanna to mix the concrete, form the blocks and construct the structure.  The hard work of the construction teams provided a tangible witness of Presbyterian devotion, Rakau says. “It played an important role to show that the church is doing something.”

     The Michigan church’s gift “was a little thing that became a very big thing,” says David Walter, the PC(USA)’s regional liaison for the Pacific. Walter was a member of the Grand Rapids congregation when the gift was made, and his wife, the Rev. Linda Knieriemen, was associate pastor. The Westminster congregation and Rakau became acquainted when Rakau came to Michigan to study at Western Theological Seminary.

     Walter and Knieriemen now live in Holland, MI, where Knieriemen serves as pastor of First Presbyterian Church.

     Both Rakau and Walter note that the Presbyterian evangelism efforts encountered sporadic violence. The thatched Sulphur Bay church was burned and so were some houses. Taruel was speared in the leg on one occasion and thrown into jail on another.

     “Violence is pretty unusual in Vanuatu,” says Walter, a PC(USA) mission worker there from 1998 to 2001. “It’s generally a peaceful country.”

     Rakau says the violence started because the John Frum leader saw that his movement was headed to minority status. Walter agreed. “It was desperation on their part,” says Walter, who attended the PCV’s General Assembly. “They knew they were losing.”

     Now the PCV must baptize the new converts and integrate them into congregations. “We have a lot of certificates to give to each one,” says Rakau with a slight chuckle.  Their Christian nurture will be the responsibility of Presbyterian sessions established around the island.

     “Each session has the responsibility to ensure that they are not only baptized but confirmed and that the adults will be confirmed in their marriages,” Rakau says.

     The PCV is training literacy teachers to help the new converts who cannot read or write.

     Presbyterian missionaries from England, Scotland and Canada began working in Vanuatu in the 19th century. Today Presbyterianism claims 38 percent of Vanuatu’s 200,000 residents and is the country’s largest religious group.

     PC(USA) missionaries have worked in Vanuatu intermittently since the 1970s, though no PC(USA) mission worker is serving there now.

     “The work of missionaries 150 years ago has resulted in an independent church that continues to spread the good news,” Walter says. “The mission workers they receive now are teachers and administrators, but no missionary there now is a pastor. There is no call for an American, Australian or New Zealander to serve as a pastor.”